# Projects > The unit everything else belongs to — how to create a project, control MCP access, read its statuses, and re-index or delete it. - Updated: 2026-09-21 - Source: https://contextator.com/en/docs/projects/ - Language: en-US - Author: Muhammet Şafak --- A **project** is the unit of everything in Contextator: it owns its documents, its embeddings, its index history and exactly one MCP endpoint. A client connected to one project can never see another's documents. Make a project per body of knowledge your agents ask questions about — usually per product, per team, or per customer. ## Creating one **New project** (or press `n`) in the dashboard. | Field | Rules | |-------|-------| | **Project name** | Lowercase letters, digits, `-` and `_`, starting with a letter or digit, up to 63 characters. Must be unique | | **Documentation directory** | Optional. A folder inside an allowed root (`/docs/...`), which becomes the project's first source | | **Index now** | Queues a first index run immediately | The name becomes the URL, so pick something you will be happy pasting into agent configurations: ``` http://localhost:3444/mcp/ ``` > **Choose the name carefully.** Renaming a project would break every client already configured with > the old URL, so treat it as permanent. To rename in practice: create a new project, add the same > sources, and update your clients. Creating a project without a directory is perfectly normal — add git repositories, uploads or Notion afterwards with **Add source**. > **New project** appears only for `root` and `admin` accounts, and so does **Delete** — a new > `/mcp/` surface is an instance-level decision. A `member` account works inside the projects it > was added to under **Members**; see [Accounts and Permissions](/en/docs/accounts-and-permissions/). ## What a project contains ``` project "handbook" ├── source "policies" (local directory) → policies/onboarding.md ├── source "api" (git repository) → api/reference/auth.md └── source "notion" (Notion workspace) → notion/Engineering/Runbooks.md ``` Every document path begins with the name of the source it came from. That is what lets two sources both contain `README.md`, and it is how an agent's answer tells you where it came from. See [Document Sources](/en/docs/document-sources/). ## MCP access A new project's endpoint is **token required** by default: creating it mints its first token and shows the secret once, in the creation dialog, so the endpoint is closed from its first second. Before this was the default, a new project was **open** — answering anyone who could reach its URL, with no account and no token — and upgrading does not retroactively change the mode of a project that already existed. The **MCP access** panel on the project page is where the mode changes, either way: | Mode | What it means | |------|---------------| | **open** | Any client that can reach `http://localhost:3444/mcp/` can search and read the project | | **token required** | Only a client sending `Authorization: Bearer ctxm_…` is answered; everything else gets `401` | | **account required** | Only a client acting as an account that is a **member** of this project is answered, checked on every request | The three narrow in that order, and what they narrow is the caller who names nobody — an anonymous request, or a static `ctxm_…` token. A credential that *does* name an account is checked against that account's membership on every request in **every** mode, **open** included: a non-member is answered `403` whatever the mode says, and removing a membership or disabling an account cuts the connection off on its next call. A client gets such a credential through OAuth 2.1, which is what browser-based MCP connectors already speak. **account required** is simply the mode that leaves no anonymous way in, which is why a static token is refused there. Changing the mode needs `manager` rights over the project — in practice a `root` or `admin` account. Minting and revoking tokens is an editor's; anyone who can see the project sees the list of its tokens by name. Who is which: [Accounts and Permissions](/en/docs/accounts-and-permissions/). **New token** shows the secret **exactly once**, at the moment it is created. The server stores only a hash of it, so a token that was not copied is replaced rather than recovered. Afterwards the list shows only its name, its first few characters (`ctxm_9f3a…`) and when it was last used. Switching a project to **token required** closes its open MCP sessions, and so does revoking a token — immediately, rather than at the client's next request. A project that requires a token and has none is unreachable, so mint the first token before you tell anyone the endpoint is ready. One thing to be clear about: a token is a credential for that endpoint, not an account. It carries no identity and no per-document rules, so whoever holds it reads everything indexed in the project. Give each client its own token so one can be revoked without disturbing the rest. How a client sends it: [Connecting AI Clients](/en/docs/connecting-ai-clients/). ## Statuses | Status | Meaning | |--------|---------| | `idle` | Nothing running. The last run succeeded | | `queued` | Waiting for the indexer, which handles one project at a time | | `indexing` | Syncing, scanning or embedding right now | | `error` | The last run failed, or one of the sources failed to sync. The reason is shown | An `error` status caused by one source does not mean nothing worked: the other sources still indexed, and the message reads like `2/3 sources synced; notion: `. ## Re-indexing | | When to use it | |---|---| | **Re-index** | The normal case. Syncs every source and re-embeds only files whose contents changed | | **Force re-index** | After changing chunk settings, or when you suspect the index is stale in a way hashing cannot see | Contextator also forces a full re-index by itself when the embedding model changed — see [Embedding Models](/en/docs/embedding-models/). Details of what happens during a run: [Indexing](/en/docs/indexing/). ## Deleting **Delete** (twice, to confirm) removes the project, its sources, documents, chunks and run history, closes any open MCP sessions, and deletes the files it materialised under `DATA_DIR` (git checkouts, uploads, Notion pulls). Your own files are never touched: documentation mounted at `/docs` is read-only, and local directory sources are scanned in place. Deletion is refused while the project is indexing — wait for the run to finish. ## Several projects The indexer processes **one project at a time**, because embedding is CPU-bound. A queued project shows which project it is waiting for. There is no limit on how many projects a deployment can hold; each one is just another URL.